[quote=jstoesz]By the way, I believe in charity (and participate in it to the detriment of my own financial well being, it hurts to say the least). But private charity engenders a sense of guilt. That guilt is necessary to wean oneself off of charity. Governmental charity does not engender that sense of shame. It engenders a sense of entitlement. No one wants poor people starving in the street, and our government policy should protect people from this. But too much Governmental charity engenders a sense of entitlement, which can be damaging to the long-term well-being of the recipient.
Why don’t we replace long-term unemployment with a CCC type employment. Is complacency more effective in buying votes then picking up a shovel for the government?[/quote]
We’re in total agreement on this, jstoesz. The welfare reform enacted in the 90s was absolutely necessary and just, IMHO.
After the bubble started breaking down, I sent massive numbers of letters, faxes, made phone calls, etc. to legislators, and anyone who would have a voice, promoting a jobs program instead of bank bailouts to help ameliorate the suffering that we’d have to endure as the credit bubble deflated. Unfortunately, we largely got the opposite of that.
We definitely need to encourage productivity and self-reliance, but we also have to realize that not everyone is as capable as the next, and it is a humane and just society that seeks to help everyone to become the best that they can be.
It’s also important to realize that there will always be an underclass. Even if one were to kill every single “freeloader” today, in ~10 years, we’d have a new crop of “freeloaders.” That’s what you get with heterogeneous societies and bell curves. Welfare isn’t for the poor, it’s for the rich. Without some way of providing for at least the basic necessities, if there is a tremendous amount of wealth at the top, the poor will rise up and take what they want, however they need to do it. There is ample historical evidence to show how this happens, almost without exception.
Again, I have very little problem with truly productive people making lots of money if they are the ones who personally created all the value and did so in a way that didn’t take advantage of, nor exploit, others. Very few rich people got there without stepping on others, and very few made it entirely on their own. I abhor when these people then try to frame the issue as “the lazy, freeloading poor” (usually those who’ve been stepped on) vs. “the deserving, productive, hard-working rich.” It’s very rarely that clear-cut.
